day one - foschini design awards

The Graduate Show
Foschini/Nokia Design Awards

Commercial Category

The main event of the Graduate Show was highly anticipated and keenly watched. The carefully selected top six students from all over South Africa competed with their miniature collections. The brief was to be creative and on-trend but most importantly, to keep a strong consideration for commercial appeal. All items had to be store-worthy and wearable right now.

Yolande Maree

Yolande Maree was my personal favourite. Her interpretation of Lady Boudoir combined neatly tailored, ultra-feminine incarnations of denim with underwear details in dusty pink and cream, ruffles and ribbons and lace. Sweet and practical.

Alschke Mielmann

Alschke Mielmann won third place with her Love Child creations in tiny dark floral prints, a super cute short-sleeved black leather jacket and more denim. You might remember Alschke from her turn on Fair Lady's Style Intern reality TV show, she's too cute.

Alshke Mielmann won third place, model is wearing her finale garment

 Melissa Franken

Melissa Franken took second place with a well-constructed, super commercial Wild West selection. I could easily imagine all the items hanging in a Foschini store right now.

 

Jenni Venter

Jenni (Jeanette) Venter won first place with a series of dresses that took my friend's breath away with its lovely vintage-inspired lace, layers, sheerness, soft pinks and tea-stained creams. A dreamy, nostalgic mood with underpinnings of shapely lingerie, it was a spot-on interpretation of Lady Boudoir and at the same time commercially viable.

Follow www.heat.co.za and buy the next issue to see a six page spread of the winning designs, congratulations Jenni Venter!